Antidepressants didn't help me with my depression. I turned to ketamine therapy instead.

Publish date: 2024-08-06
2022-04-11T17:35:25Z

It was November 2021, and my husband was so worried about me that he emailed my therapist. As a depressed person living through a pandemic, I thought I was doing relatively fine. I was working my remote job, keeping in touch with family, and not sleeping too much.

But he saw things differently, and reading his list of concerns was a gut punch. I was doing the bare minimum at work. I was binge-watching TV. I spent most of my days in bed. He even complained about my hygiene. I was mortified and knew I needed to do something different. That's when I started researching ketamine-assisted therapy.

I've been on antidepressants for decades

I was 38 and had been on antidepressants since college, with varying degrees of success. I always stuck with them, though, figuring I'd be worse off without them. Last year, however, I felt like the antidepressants failed me.

I'd read that ketamine — an anesthetic with psychedelic and dissociative effects that has become a popular party drug — had shown advances in treating depression. But I worried the conventional route, which involves visiting a clinic multiple times and being administered the drug via IV or nose spray, would be too expensive.

Googling quickly revealed a solution: remote ketamine therapy. Given that the pandemic was still going strong — and my depression made leaving the house difficult — the idea of doing the treatment in the comfort of my home was appealing. And it was more affordable.

Research has shown that ketamine can help regulate moods, by working on a neurotransmitter called glutamate. According to Yale medicine "This makes the brain more adaptable and able to create new pathways, and gives patients the opportunity to develop more positive thoughts and behaviors. This was an effect that had not been seen before, even with traditional antidepressants."

I tried ketamine therapy with an app

What made Nue Life stand out was its app, which coordinates all your care in one place. It walks you through every step of the process, from your initial clinician consult to providing playlists for trips to offering trackers to record your moods. I chose a $1,250 package, which included six ketamine experiences, four integration sessions — to process your sessions with a therapist — clinician consults, and health coaching. 

After signing up for the service, my first interaction was a video call with a clinician in my state, so they could prescribe the medicine. It's similar to a consult with a psychiatrist: You talk about your concerns, current medications, goals, etc. They take your weight into consideration when estimating the first dose, and adjust it afterward depending on your initial experience.

My first session was powerful

Within days, the ketamine arrived in the mail, and I prepared for my first session. Reclining on my bed, I took the tablets. The tablets dissolve in your mouth with your saliva, and after a while of swishing the mixture around in your mouth, you spit all the liquid out.

Within 10 minutes, I started feeling heady and tingly. I saw colorful shapes behind my eyelids, and my body pulsed to the music.

As the drug peaked, I had what I now consider the most powerful experience of my therapy. I relived a memory from my childhood — one I don't remember even recalling before. I was around 8, eating breakfast on a weekend morning with my mom, dad, and brother. 

It was like watching a movie but better. Everything was so vivid, every sense heightened: from the taste of the Lucky Charms to the sound of Saturday morning cartoons to the smell of my parents' coffee. This was about 10 years before they divorced. There wasn't anything special about this morning. It was quite ordinary, but the effect it had on me was not.

Joy infused me, and I started crying and laughing. I felt so secure and loved — part of a greater whole. It was clear that I needed to live within that love to heal, and I decided to move back near family for the first time in 20 years. It was something I had been wanting to do, and now had the energy to actually go through with it. 

The next day, my depression symptoms returned. But, by the end of six sessions, I felt lighter, like the weight on my shoulders wasn't quite as crushing. It was still there, but I could bear it. I felt capable of positive change for the first time in years.

I plan on doing more ketamine therapy in the future to maintain these effects, as experts say they're cumulative. I'm still on antidepressants — my old frenemy — but at a lower dose than I've been on in years.

 

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